Rallying Round the River

In a scorching, scrub-covered valley in northeast Thailand, King Bhumibol Adulyadej this week will dedicate a $28.4 million dam across a tributary of the mighty Mekong River. Part of an ambitious, internationally financed effort to convert the Mekong's 2,625 miles of untamed torrent into a source of prosperity, the Nam Pong dam will not only store irrigation water for Thai farms but will provide electric power for both Thailand and neighboring Laos, part of it over jointly owned trans mission lines.

Such across-the-border cooperation has up to now largely eluded the na tions of Asia, and the dam symbolizes a change of vast potential consequences.

Despite ancient animosities, political rivalries and the Viet Nam war, 24 non-Communist Asian nations from Iran to Western Samoa are banding together for their own economic development --largely at the behest of the United Na tions Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East. "The river is a psy chological rallying point," says U Nyun, ECAFE executive secretary. "Countries that normally bicker can work together. The Mekong project holds the seeds --perhaps the only really promising seeds --for abiding peace in Southeast Asia."

Road to Adventure. Laos, South Viet Nam, Thailand and Cambodia have al ready made a harmonious start at harnessing the Himalaya-fed Mekong. In addition to Nam Pong dam, five other power and irrigation projects costing $50.7 million are built or abuilding on Mekong tributaries. Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines forged another kind of economic tie two weeks ago by reviving the dormant Association for Southeast Asia, tentatively agreeing to cut cable rates, swap radio and TV shows, begin free trade in a few commodities. Headquarters for the $1 billion Asian Development Bank, aimed at financing such sinews as power, railroads and industry, is rising in Manila; the bank hopes to open by summer. Within two to four years, a 7,000-mi. all-weather Asian highway is expected to link Teheran and Singapore. A road of sorts is 96% completed now, and in the dry season, adventurous motorists can attempt the trip from Iran to Dacca in East Pakistan.

The leading evangelist of the new spirit is the governor of the Bank of Thailand, Dr. Puey Ungphakorn. Publicity-shy Puey, 49, holder of a Ph.D. in economics from London University, refuses honors and decorations, keeps his birth date a secret in order to thwart the Thai custom of showering public figures with presents, and tends zealously to his three jobs--at the bank, as director of fiscal policy for Thailand's Finance Ministry and as dean of the economics faculty at Thammasat University. Last month Puey quietly put together a formal alliance of central-bank governors from Ceylon, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines and South Viet Nam to plan regional economic projects, push for lower tariffs and pooled transport facilities.

Jigsaw Puzzle. For all its progress, Asia is a long way from such close bonds as those of Europe's Common Market. Poverty compels Asia's economic partners to put resource development, notably of the Mekong, ahead of tariff cutting and trade. In Asia's developing countries, per-capita income averages only $100 a year, agriculture ties up 71% of the labor force, 60% illiteracy among persons over 14 hobbles productivity, and a worsening trade deficit cancels half the bounty of foreign aid. U Nyun expects the area to spawn "a jigsaw puzzle" of groups for differing purposes. That seems to be the Asian way to woo allies. Even Burma, which generally shuns foreigners, has signed up for the first Asian International Trade Fair, to be held in Bangkok this November.

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